


slow it down

by allieteration



Category: Life Is Strange (Video Game)
Genre: Canon LGBTQ Character, F/F, LGBTQ Character, Pride, Summer, Summer Love, Tooth-Rotting Fluff
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-06-17
Updated: 2019-06-17
Packaged: 2020-05-13 16:24:37
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,095
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19254850
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/allieteration/pseuds/allieteration
Summary: in this long-form one-shot, max caulfield, chloe price, and rachel amber chase fireflies and slurp on diner milkshakes on a warm summer night in oregon.





	slow it down

**Author's Note:**

> in honor of pride month and all the lgbtq+ things, i resurrected an amberpricefield draft of mine that i’ve read over and over, but haven’t stitched together the words to finish it. however, with june chorusing around us with everything summer, and through my consumption of queer media, including, but not limited to, reading the miseducation of cameron post, starting pose on fx, etc—and, of course, replaying life is strange—i was inspired to continue this little-one-shot-that-could. writing this trio is nothing short of sheer merriment, and i am happy to let rachel live on, basking in the glory she deserved.

we’re sitting in the backseat of rachel’s car, our thighs sticking to the leather seats like bubblegum from the summertime humidity.there’s melodies pouring from the radio and i’m humming along with the rhythm.rachel is draped across the hood, smoking a cigarette, and chloe is watching her.she catches me staring and i feel my cheeks redden into crimson.

 

“why don’t you take a picture, photographer max?it’ll last longer,” she punches my arm in jest, and i laugh a real laugh that eats away at my throat like a rabbit burrowing out of the earthen soil.i shove her, sticking out my tongue, and she snickers to herself.she has a way of getting under my skin.maybe that’s why i bruise so easily.

 

rachel flicks the tail of her cigarette into the abyss of the woodland, and rejoins us in the car.she’s smiling like she knows something we don’t.everything is quiet around us.a winsome silence that wraps around you like a silk ribbon tenderly swaddles around a gift; that holds you together, so you don’t fall apart.it’s impossible to collapse around rachel, but so utterly possible around chloe.she makes me into a mosaic and thoughtfully pieces me back together with calloused hands.

 

“tonight feels like a memory already,” rachel whispers more to herself than to us.as soon as she says this, a swarm of fireflies set ablaze around us.they’re a part of her, i think.chloe gasps, and i feel like it’s the first time i’ve seen her eyes illuminate in a twinkle of bokeh in weeks.

 

i clamor out of the car and start pirouetting around the meadow soaked in twilight like bodies in lemongrass soap.rachel holds out her palms, her honey hair glowing against the moonshine.chloe sits down in the tall grass, watching us prance like schoolgirls amongst the creatures in flight.i waltz over to her and take her hands, pulling her towards me.with shaky breaths and lips inches from mine, i reel her in, a quiet kiss that leaves us standing with foreheads touching.she pecks my nose and wraps her arms around me.all around us the sky is watercolors of rosy pinks and violet purples.i retrieve my instant camera from my canvas bag and hold it out towards rachel, who, on cue, snaps a photograph of chloe and me in a side embrace, lips enkindled together, the world around us like a daydream that doesn’t last long enough.

 

the three of us sit side-by-side, chloe and i’s fingers intertwined, and watch the moon crescendo like a symphony and the sun cascade down like autumnal leaves, the sky bleeding with a sanguine hue that reminded me of my mother’s preferred red wine with my father’s homemade dinners, the clouds its bandages.

 

“i wish the universe would slow down,” chloe mumbles.“every planet orbiting the sun would spin a little slower, every star a little softer.moments wouldn’t go from one to the next in a blink or a flash of a polaroid.”

 

i sighed wistfully, remembering when the cosmos and time was at my fingertips; remembering when i could make every moment count.i think the the heavens were teaching me a lesson: every time your eyes lock with somebody; every time your hands touch; every time you breathe in sync with somebody—the whole world sets on fire.it is you who gives weight to these moments, not the galaxy.however omnipresent, you are still you.that’s how it felt; that i was me and chloe was chloe and rachel was rachel—and together, we could spin the globe and take over anywhere we traveled.fly to france and eat croissants and watch the country unfold from the eiffel tower.journey to italy and spin pasta around a fork and float down the river with a violinist orchestrating what love sounds like on their instrument.cross through state lines in the usa and witness the scenic drives in chloe’s truck laying in the bed of it, watching everything whirl past.

 

“it’s sad when people put fireflies in a jar,” rachel says, her voice sorrowful.“something so alive shouldn’t be confined.”

 

i knew she meant us, too.we couldn’t be constrained by arcadia bay or blackwell academy or oregon.together, so alive and gentle—we could bend time on our own.

 

we pile back into the car and drive down the highway in search of milkshakes for an hour before rolling up to a little joint on the fringe of the next town over where nobody knows our names.we slide into a booth and each order strawberry milkshakes and three orders of french fries.rachel and chloe catapult their straw wrappers at each other while the jukebox sounds old amy winehouse melodies over the diner, and i try to tie the stem of the cherry atop whipped cream into a knot with my tongue; it tastes like promises and stolen kisses.it reminds me of two whales’, but i’m not thirteen eating belgian waffles while chloe and joyce bicker over clanging forks and the aroma of bacon in a skillet; i’m nineteen and the glacial chill of ice cream is emanating from a tall milkshake glass while rachel and chloe reminisce on their lifetime after i moved away to seattle.how high they would get; when and where and with whom.the sleepovers under constellation points they would have after a dusk of raising hell.how rachel would model for the photography students at blackwell and chloe would watch her every move, absorbing her winsomeness like everybody did when it came to rachel amber.

 

chloe notices my sulking before i can mask it, and she reclines against me, that magnificent blue head of her’s beneath my chin, my arms shrouding her in a veil of pale skin peppered with freckles.she entwines her fingers with mine, her hands manicured with onyx nail polish, and she brings the back of my hand to her strawberry chapstick lips.

 

when we part ways with the diner, our wrinkled dollar bills for tips splayed out on the tabletop, the soles of our high tops pattering against the linoleum flooring and then the cement sidewalk, our arms interlocked with one another’s—we feel whole.sometimes you leave pieces of yourself in so many places and people and things that you become empty.together, however—we fill one another up, nothing short of faultlessness. _this is how it feels_ , i think to myself.  _this is how it feels to be somebody._


End file.
